Lambreth
The wrinkled hills and watered dells of Lambreth make up a tiny corner of the River Kingdoms, cupped between the mighty Sellen River to the west and the swift-running Tolemaida to the east. Its folded topography makes large farms uncommon, but the copses are thick with deer and glades teem with smaller game (rabbit, pheasant, and wild hokie in particular), often nesting in the ubiquitous tangles of river blackberry that give Lambreth its nickname “the Blackthorn Dells.” Innumerable moss-banked streams and tumbling waterfalls feed the two rivers that frame Lambreth, descending from the Juviler Hills that mark Lambreth’s northern verges.
In the River Kingdoms, some realms are held together by magic or threats. Lambreth is held together by the sheer physical power of Lord Arnefax, an Andoren knight banished for his excesses and crimes against nature. Leading a company of 50 heavy cavalry (unusual in the River Kingdoms, where bandits rarely use heavy armor or heavy horse), he rules from Maashinelle’s small citadel and makes frequent nocturnal visits to his borders riding a powerful nightmare. His people are terrified of both his night riders and their shadowy dogs, and perversely proud that Arnefax is powerful enough to keep their lands free and unmolested by raids. The few occasions when Lambreth has lost livestock, the ensuing retaliation usually involved the death of two people for every cow or sheep stolen—often by lynching and burning. Few dare challenge the Andoren’s ruthless rule.
History
Few records exist of Lambreth before its current incarnation. A fledgling domain called Alban lasted only a few generations before being overrun in 4071 by goblins, who called their lands the “Kingdom of Zog.” A dynasty of seven barghests using the name of Zog held sway until 4217 when the Yellowtongue Sickness ravaged the goblin ranks and they were overthrown by a loose coalition of rivermen, half-elves, and adventurers. Numerous small villages sprang up in fertile valleys, but few towns of consequence, and even those were hardly stable; the largest, the ramshackle pirate haven of Troxell on the Sellen River, burned to the ground in 4328 after a tavern brawl erupted into a full-fledged riot.
Lambreth as it now exists arose from the union of three rival merchant families. The Cullertons are Lambreth’s oldest family, founding Maashinelle in 4355 at the confluence of the two rivers, followed by the Angelidis founding Lockridge in 4394, and the Vizcarra founding Sezgin in 4424. Each controlled a tiny city-state, just strong enough that it could not be picked off easily, but small enough to pass beneath the notice of larger neighbors. Yet all three families feared annexation by stronger rivals, especially after the small domain of Dalzell, south of the bend of the Tolemaida, was absorbed by Tymon in 4492. In 4502, after 10 years of delicate negotiations, Leeoda Cullerton proposed a union of the three families, gathering among them all of the isolated villages between the Sellen to the west and the Tolemaida to the east. They would rule as the Triunes of Lambreth, a three-family oligarchy. Still no match for the raw power of Daggermark or Tymon, Lambreth’s wealth and political and trade connections, especially with northern lands farther up the Sellen, granted a modicum of security until the last half-century.
In years past, the borders of the River Kingdoms once extended to all the tributaries of the Sellen, with dominions like Prochnau, Marroquin, and Camillus stretching from the Vergan Forest (now called the Exalted Wood) to Ustalav. When Razmir the Living God came to power, however, he was not satisfied with his first annexations but continued to spread his power by word, sword, and flame for over a decade. The establishment of his capital of Thronestep in 4672 was no culmination, but merely a pause while he turned his eyes upon the fragmented dominions that once guarded Lambreth’s riverward flanks. With each lord looking out for his own interests, by the beginning of 4674 those realms had crumbled before bribes, subversion, infiltrative charity, and finally threats, sedition, and outright war, and Razmiran’s iron-masked fanatics held the western bank of the Sellen to the Ustalav frontier.
The Triunes’ wealth and influence failed them, as the faceless cultists seemed immune to graft, and infiltrators could make no headway against the ruthless mental conditioning of Razmiran’s acolytes. The other River Kingdoms were marshaling their own defenses against this new threat and had little succor to give, and soon Lambreth was itself being infiltrated by provocateurs from Razmiran, from humble mendicants spreading the word of the generosity of the Living God to poisoners and assassins the equal of any in Daggermark. Hemmed in and desperate, the Triunes were unexpectedly visited by an exiled Andoren knight named Kamdyn Arnefax. Arnefax promised a solution to the Razmiri problem. With some hesitation, the Triunes accepted, even acceding to his outrageous demands (including lordship of Lambreth), assuming he would be killed in a suicidal delaying action that would at least buy time to rally other River Kingdoms to their aid, or—if he did unexpectedly well—could be murdered later. Unfortunately for the Triunes, in their desperation they turned to a man they did not fully understand.
Marshaling his own household guards with Lambreth’s piecemeal army and refugees from the fallen kingdoms, Arnefax added not only mercenaries bought with Triune coin but shadow-beasts and hellspawn from the infernal reaches. Astride nightmare steeds and flanked by packs of shadowy hounds, Arnefax and his personal guard, backed by the infamous Catspaw Marauders of Ustalav, launched a devastating sneak attack upon Razmiran’s armies, slaughtering their off icers while his Riverfolk crossed the Sellen by night. The Razmiri camp became a killing field, with precious few escaping the slaughter, and this victory is still celebrated every 26th of Calistril as the Moonlight Massacre of 4675.
The elated Triunes prepared a welcome celebration in Maashinelle, but when Master Tandre Cullerton suggested a delay in the recognition of Arnefax’s lordship, the knight coolly snapped the man’s neck with his bare hands. Lady Cullerton swiftly met the same fate when she rushed to her fallen husband’s side. Over their corpses, Arnefax proclaimed: “Betrayal is a crime, and any crime must be punished twice; once for a lesson learned, and once for a lesson remembered. Remember always who rules in Lambreth.” The Angelidis and Vizcarra families both swore fealty at once, while the Cullertons were dispossessed and exiled under penalty of death.
Arnefax’s dark legend has grown with passing years, as repeated assassination attempts from Razmiran and rivals within the River Kingdoms have ended only in public torture and execution (often with thornvines grown through the victims and painstakingly crafted into cruel topiary), followed by devastating retaliation by Lord Arnefax and his minions. His most famous punitive act was in 4698 with the burning of three manor houses of merchants and lordlings conspiring against him—all the more remarkable since the manors were in Daggermark, Sevenarches, and Druma, and all were burned in a single night.
Justice in Lambreth is harsh even for small-time rustlers and poachers, with two lives forfeit for every beast taken. Arnefax is hardly loved by his people—though he nominally honors the River Freedoms, the “encouragement” of his Black Eagles ensures that most citizens live virtually imprisoned within Lambreth. Still, while Arnefax is prone to bleak moods and his underlings carry a sinister reputation, their eyes rarely fall hard upon the common folk. True, citizens do simply disappear from time to time, but in this dangerous and often lawless region commoners see their lot as perhaps better than most, hoping all the while that dark rumor exaggerates and that, even if true, at least such things will never happen to them. Many commoners actually take a perverse pride in knowing that under Arnefax’s rule tiny Lambreth is not a dominion to be trif led with, by bandit, pirate, merchant, or mad theocrat, a shield that holds masked armies and the encroaching wild at bay.